Photography

Photos: Counting Down to the Launch of Artemis II

NASA’s Artemis II—the first mission to carry humans beyond low Earth orbit in more than 50 years—is scheduled to launch on April 1, 2026. The 10-day journey will take four astronauts around the moon and back, testing NASA’s new launch system before future missions to the lunar surface.

By Alan Taylor
A rocket stands on a launch pad, lit at night, seen from a distance, with a red-colored full moon rising in the background.
Jennifer Briggs / ZUMA Press Wire / Reuters
NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, with the Orion spacecraft atop, stands at Launch Complex 39B on February 2, 2026, as the moon rises behind the vehicle during a wet dress rehearsal.
A crew of four astronauts stand, posing in flight suits, inside a small white room.
Frank Michaux / NASA
The Artemis II astronauts—(from left) NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and the Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen—stand in the white room on the crew-access arm of the mobile launcher at Launch Pad 39B as part of an integrated ground-systems test at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on September 20, 2023.
A person wearing goggles works alongside a four-foot-long scale model of a rocket. The small room is lit by black light, and the rocket glows pink.
Dominic Hart / Ames / NASA
Patrick Shea inspects a 1.3 percent scale model of SLS in a wind tunnel at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California, in 2016. The tests were designed to determine the powerful rocket’s behavior as it climbs and accelerates through the sound barrier after launch. To also test a new optical-measurement method, Ames engineers coated the SLS model with unsteady pressure-sensitive paint, which, under the lighting, glows dimmer or brighter according to the air pressure acting on different areas of the rocket.
A space capsule sits in a room, surrounded by tall stacks of speakers.
Radislav Sinyak / Johnson Space Center / NASA
The Orion crew module undergoes a direct-field acoustic test, where stacks of more than 1,500 speakers were used to expose the spacecraft to the maximum acoustic levels that it will experience at launch. Spacecraft response and sound-pressure data were collected with microphones, strain gauges, and accelerometers.
Two astronauts train inside a capsule mockup, communicating with headsets.
James Blair / NASA / JSC
The Artemis II crew members Victor Glover and Christina Koch participate in crew lunar-observations training in the Orion mockup at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, in Houston, on July 16, 2025.
People stand on decks inside an open space at the bottom of a ship, on either side of a space capsule bobbing in waves.
Joel Kowsky / NASA
A wave breaks inside the well deck of USS Somerset as teams work to recover the Crew Module Test Article, a full-scale replica of the Orion spacecraft, as they practice Artemis recovery operations off the coast of California, on March 27, 2025.
Several uniformed navy personnel work together alongside a floating spacecraft, module, helping astronauts inside get into inflatable boats.
Kenny Allen / NASA
Artemis II crew members are assisted by U.S. Navy personnel as they exit a mockup of the Orion spacecraft in the Pacific Ocean during a test operation on February 25, 2024.
A rocket booster fires, lifting a small test spacecraft into the air at a launch pad.
Tony Gray and Kevin O'Connell / NASA
A fully functional Launch Abort System with a test version of Orion attached, soars upward on NASA’s Ascent Abort-2 flight test on July 2, 2019, at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, in Florida. The LAS’s three motors will work together to pull the crew module away from the booster and prepare it for splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean in the unlikely event of an emergency during ascent.
Three American flag arm patches and one Canadian flag arm patch are seen on the shoulders of four orange flight suits.
Joel Kowsky / NASA
The flags of the United States and Canada are seen on the left shoulders of Orion Crew Survival System suits that will be worn on the Artemis II test flight on January 17, 2026, in the suit-up room of the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at Kennedy Space Center.
Towboats push a long floating container along a channel toward a large rocket launch facility.
Jamie Peer and Isaac Hutson / NASA
NASA’s Pegasus barge carries the agency’s massive Space Launch System core stage at the Kennedy Space Center Complex 39 turn basin wharf on July 23, 2024.
A rocket is lowered into place beside two solid rocket boosters, inside a tall building.
Frank Michaux / NASA
Teams with NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems and primary contractor Amentum integrate the SLS rocket with the solid rocket boosters onto mobile launcher 1 inside High Bay 3 of the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center on March 23, 2025.
A view looking down on a rocket from a high platform inside a very tall building, with multiple retractable decks on either side of the rocket.
Frank Michaux / NASA
In this view looking down in High Bay 3 inside the Vehicle Assembly Building on January 17, 2026, the work platforms are retracted around the Artemis II SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft in preparation for rollout.
A tall rocket is rolled out of a launch facility building on top of a large tracked vehicle.
Joel Kowsky / NASA
NASA’s SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft, secured to the mobile launcher, roll out of the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39B on March 20, 2026.
A person stands behind a spotlight that is aimed up at a tall rocket that is being rolled out to a launch pad.
John Kraus / NASA
The Artemis II SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft roll out to Launch Complex 39B on March 20, 2026.
The top of the head of an alligator, seen floating in swamp water, silhouetted by the reflection of an illuminated rocket in the background.
Aubrey Gemignani / NASA
An alligator swims in a nearby swamp, silhouetted by a reflection of the Artemis II Space SLS rocket, illuminated by lights at Launch Complex 39B on February 10, 2026.
A person stands on a gravel road beside one of several gigantic tracks that belong to a large vehicle that towers above him.
Joel Kowsky / NASA
NASA’s mobile launcher carries the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft up a slight incline to Launch Pad 39B on March 20, 2026, at Kennedy Space Center.
A massive tracked vehicle that acts as a platform carries a tall rocket to a launch pad.
Aubrey Gemignani / NASA
The SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft arrive at Launch Pad 39B on March 20, 2026.
A view of the crew module atop a tall rocket, seen from a tall support structure beside the rocket.
Bill Ingalls / NASA
On March 30, 2026, the Artemis II SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft stand at Launch Complex 39B, ready for final preparations before launch in April.

About the Author

Alan Taylor is a senior editor at The Atlantic.
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